Whatever that special something was about Mary, Polly has that something, too. As in the famously potty-licious comedy from the Farrelly brothers, “Along Came Polly” again pairs the hapless Ben Stiller with a gal of irrepressible insouciance.
“Polly,” written and directed by John Hamburg, lacks the shock value of “There’s Something About Mary.” Also, its love story isn’t as compelling. You believed in the something that Mary possessed. Here, we like Polly only because we’re told we should.
Standing in for Cameron Diaz is Jennifer Aniston, who saunters through the movie in an interchangeable series of spunky, diaphanous tops. Her Polly Prince has a devil-may-care attitude toward relationships and career. She prefers her ethnic food — and her life — as spicy as can be. Quite unlike Mr. Stiller’s geekily named Reuben Feffer, a risk-assessment analyst at a Manhattan insurance firm who has irritable bowels and a professional case of hypochondria.
In Reuben’s other-world, there are germs, germs and danger, danger everywhere (in the bar munchies bowl, on sidewalk grates), which is probably how he wound up hitched to the very proper Lisa Kramer (Debra Messing). Lisa’s the kind of wet noodle who says things like “thingamajiggy” and festoons her bed with useless decorative pillows. Reuben’s the kind of guy who lets her.
We meet the suburbia-bound couple on their wedding day and quickly follow them to plush St. Barts for an ill-fated honeymoon. In one of “Polly’s” many amusing second-banana roles, a Frenchified Hank Azaria turns up in the buff (Who knew he had a body like that?) and lures Lisa onto his boat, where all sorts of diving — scuba, adultery — ensues.
If his job didn’t give it away, you’d see Reuben’s problem immediately: risk aversion. Wimpiness, in a word. Women will walk all over this guy if he doesn’t stiffen his spine. Which he does, improbably, a mere two weeks after the cuckolding, by asking Polly, who serves hors d’oeuvres for a catering company, on a date.
It wouldn’t be a Ben Stiller movie if things went smoothly. They go disastrously.
As he has been in the past (“Mary” and the Hamburg-penned “Meet the Parents”), Mr. Stiller is a master of piteousness. Embarrassment fits him like an old pair of jeans. The famous zipper massacre of “Mary” and the house fire of “Parents” are conjured here with bad reactions to Moroccan food and a bathroom emergency that steals equally from “Dumb and Dumber.”
The Stillerian mojo hasn’t nose-dived yet, but it has taken a bit of dip. It’s getting old, in other words. Mr. Hamburg freshens things with a crack sound design (Exactly what sound does a blind ferret make when it sprints into a wall?) and clever camera work that gets into the head of Reuben’s neurosis. (A slo-mo scene where Mr. Stiller is planted cheek-by-torso into a forest of body hair and sweat was funny even after multiple trailer spoilings.)
“Polly” also benefits from a pair of great screwball supporting roles from Alec Baldwin (as Reuben’s swinish boss) and Philip Seymour Hoffman (as Reuben’s slobbo wingman). The latter’s role would’ve been better cast with Jack Black but, for character acting, you can do no better than Mr. Hoffman these days.
Bryan Brown, as Reuben’s risk-seeking prospective client, was a misfire, however. His character loses purpose after the second crazy stunt or so, and “Polly” flails along with him.
For low-brow January, though, “Polly” is passable stuff.
**
TITLE: “Along Came Polly”
RATING: PG-13 (Sexual content; some profanity; crude humor; drug references)
CREDITS: Written and directed by John Hamburg. Produced by Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher. Cinematography by Seamus McGarvey. Original music by Theodore Shapiro.
RUNNING TIME: 90 minutes.
MAXIMUM RATING: FOUR STARS
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